


Turning Out

by Odyle



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1881861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odyle/pseuds/Odyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The signs had been there. Skye kept her things packed in a duffle bag. As soon as she was done with them, she put them away again. It was the habit of someone who was ready to run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mk_tortie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mk_tortie/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta. Long may she reign. Any mistakes that remain are my own.

Each day she got up and tinkered with her laptop. When he asked her how her work was progressing, Skye shook her head and said it was too early to tell. Before, she would have been eager to babble away about whatever she was working on. Skye joined in for the activities, but there was no enthusiasm there. She went through the motions of being part of the team.

At first she’d brushed him off, giving him explanations that he only half-believed. Skye told him that she was being here was different for her. The only places she’d really called home--the Bus and her van--were vehicles. She wasn’t used to staying in one place. The constancy was getting to her. Coulson let it go. She would tell him when she was ready, he reasoned. 

Recently, she’d started to simply avoid being alone with him, when he could ask her questions that made her squirm. During the day she holed up in different nooks of the Playground. The new base was meant to be manned by a much larger staff than what remained of their team. There were plenty of places to hide and be alone. If Coulson saw her at all outside of dinner or movie night, it was just as she disappeared from the room. 

It came as some surprise when he found her at a food prep table in one of the kitchens late one night. He’d had a dream that he no longer remembered except to know that it had unsettled him enough that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Skye was eating something from a government-issue cellophane bag and staring at a terminal window on her laptop. 

“Rough night?” 

“Can’t sleep,” Skye said. Her eyes stayed on the screen even as she spoke to him. She wasn’t dressed for bed unless she slept in jeans and boots.

“And that helps?” he asked. 

She paused for a moment to roll her shoulders. “Well, I might as well be doing something if I can’t sleep.” 

He almost asked her about the dream, but it looked like Skye hadn’t even attempted sleep. Her body was tense as she worked on her program. 

“It’s okay for you to take time to relax.” 

“But if I can’t sleep, I might as well be useful.” 

“Stand down, soldier,” Coulson said. 

“I’m okay.” 

All signs suggested that she wasn’t, but he didn’t care to venture down that path. This was the longest conversation they had had in weeks. 

“What are you working on?” he asked. 

“I’m trying to put together a thing to search the back ups of the old SHIELD databases we still have for information about caches. I figure that Hydra can’t have found all of them. There may be some buried treasure out there, we’ve just got to find it.”

Nick Fury had left them with what he could provide, but Coulson wouldn’t argue against a few more toys. There were things floating around out there that he didn’t particularly want to fall into the hands of Hydra. Earth-made objects would be bad enough, but he knew that there were alien weapons in SHIELD’s collection. The more they could gather, the better. 

He wasn’t, however, going to ask why Skye had back-ups of SHIELD databases. 

“That’s very ambitious.” 

“I’ll be the hero of the day… if I can ever get it to work.” 

Skye jammed at her keyboard harder. 

“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” 

“But SHIELD came down in a day.” 

He didn’t bother to correct her as it had certainly felt that way. HYDRA had been an infection that had festered for more than half a century, working its way into every crack and crevice of SHIELD. The disease had been there, but no one had noticed. 

Coulson took a seat beside her and reached for the bag. It was kettle corn. An odd choice of midnight snack, but he took a handful and returned the bag. 

“You’re not letting anyone down.”

“I don’t feel like I’m keeping up, though. Jemma? Jemma figured out how to turn a box of broken science junk into a containment force field that works. Trip knows everybody. He’s vetting contacts and tracking down leads and doing who knows what. May is May. No further explanation required. And then you’re behind everything, keeping it all together. What have I done? I showed Billy how to use his DVR.”

“This sounds promising, though.” 

“Gee… thanks, dad.” 

“You shouldn’t compare yourself to the others. You’re not Jemma or Trip or May.” 

“I’m not,” Skye said. 

She pushed her laptop away, slipped off her stool and went to the sink for a glass of water. When she’d gulped down the first glass, she filled it again. Skye turned back toward the table and saw him. It seemed for a moment that she had forgotten he was there. Skye pulled another glass from the rack and filled it. 

“Can I tell you something?” Skye asked. 

“You know you can tell me anything.”

Skye inspected him for a moment, as if she was trying to judge his truthfulness, before she handed him the glass of water. It hurt him to see the distrust. 

“You can’t tell anyone else.” 

“I promise not to tell anyone else.”

“I don’t feel like I’m pulling my weight,” Skye said as she handed him the glass of water. “Sometimes I feel like I should just leave.” 

It did not surprise him. Skye kept her things packed in a duffle bag. As soon as she was done with them, she put them away again. It was the habit of someone who was ready to run. Tensions had run high a few weeks before when Simmons noticed that Skye refused to leave her toothbrush in the bathroom they shared. He’d been called in to negotiate between them. Both parties had left more or less content, but Coulson had added it to the growing list of Skye’s concerning behaviors.

“You might not have accomplished what you wanted to, but you’re an important part of this team,” Coulson said. 

Maybe she hadn’t been lying when she said she didn’t feel comfortable here. Maybe it was half a lie. It wasn’t the base that knocked her askew, but the change in workload. There was less for her to hack now that the team spent more time planning and less time doing. 

“And I want you here. Maybe I don’t say it enough. I want you here. You haven’t disappointed me, Skye. You’re the best.”

Skye set her glass down next to her laptop, but didn’t sit. She saved whatever it was she was working on, then closed her laptop. 

“I’ll leave you alone,” Skye said as she gathered up her laptop. “Try to get some sleep.”

“Same goes for you.” 

She nodded absently and left the kitchen. Coulson listened to her footsteps disappear into the hallway. He listened for the pause, which came just as he knew it would. 

“Did you really mean that?” Skye asked from the doorway. 

Coulson turned around on his stool to face her. 

“Did I mean what?” he asked. 

She fidgeted for a moment, moving her laptop from hip to hip and studying the floor as if it would reveal the secrets of the universe if deciphered. 

“The part about me being the best,” Skye said. 

A smile pulled at the corner of his lips, but he resisted and answered: “without a doubt.”


End file.
